tomes
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Post by tomes on Feb 23, 2017 15:51:15 GMT -8
Was just reading the now-locked prior thread, and have no need to address any of the mayhem, but regarding jonas comment: I have the following opinion from my personal experiences: As a player, and like Stu Venable mentioned, I have a hard time sitting down to a fully-written PC and just jump into role-playing with any specific characterization. It doesn't sound like an uncommon problem from what I hear. Given a choice, I like PbtA-style character building and collaborative team- and world-building, but barring that, in a more traditionally oriented pre-gen style game, I really like what you have up above. I'm assuming that those pre-builds all have a character sheet associated with them with skills and all that jazz, but what I love is that you've left the personality a little bit ambiguous (at least that's the way I'm reading it). "The beautiful actor" can be a waifish blondie ex-model lady, or a bare-chested hunk, or a mediocre looking dude with a shining personality that everyone loves. "The angry cousin" might be pissed cause the world is going to shit and they're trying to fix it, or just disgruntled because noone in the family likes that they're married to a white girl. "The perturbed military" could mean someone who hates war due to experience, or hates hippies or civilians cause they don't afford them the respect they deserve. Again, that was the way I was reading your list. Maybe these are just hints and you've already defined exactly why they are angry or whatnot, and that's OK too... at least in this case I'm coming in choosing something that I have a better chance of getting into. So, I think you'd do better with this, then just dropping someone into a role they may not like. It's something to consider though: How much do you need them to be who you envision, versus who they want to be. Someone here ( SirGuido ? I can't remember) ran a Jackercon game where they gave everyone a color choice (pink, green, etc.) and that informed which Gummi Bear (TV show) character you got. First off: you are risking someone getting a character they aren't into. Second: How strong are you enforcing or do you care if people stick with the canon personality. E.g. I don't mind playing Granny Gummi, but I want to play her my way, and not give a shit what the show was specifically about. And I think that's the risk that everyone was warning you about: if you come in too focused, there is a greater chance of player rebellion and dissatisfaction. The more you let go, the better odds that won't happen, but the further off-track you get from your concept. Just try to find that middle ground and cross those fingers.
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SirGuido
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Post by SirGuido on Feb 23, 2017 16:00:46 GMT -8
Was just reading the now-locked prior thread, and have no need to address any of the mayhem, but regarding jonas comment: I have the following opinion from my personal experiences: As a player, and like Stu Venable mentioned, I have a hard time sitting down to a fully-written PC and just jump into role-playing with any specific characterization. It doesn't sound like an uncommon problem from what I hear. Given a choice, I like PbtA-style character building and collaborative team- and world-building, but barring that, in a more traditionally oriented pre-gen style game, I really like what you have up above. I'm assuming that those pre-builds all have a character sheet associated with them with skills and all that jazz, but what I love is that you've left the personality a little bit ambiguous (at least that's the way I'm reading it). "The beautiful actor" can be a waifish blondie ex-model lady, or a bare-chested hunk, or a mediocre looking dude with a shining personality that everyone loves. "The angry cousin" might be pissed cause the world is going to shit and they're trying to fix it, or just disgruntled because noone in the family likes that they're married to a white girl. "The perturbed military" could mean someone who hates war due to experience, or hates hippies or civilians cause they don't afford them the respect they deserve. Again, that was the way I was reading your list. Maybe these are just hints and you've already defined exactly why they are angry or whatnot, and that's OK too... at least in this case I'm coming in choosing something that I have a better chance of getting into. So, I think you'd do better with this, then just dropping someone into a role they may not like. It's something to consider though: How much do you need them to be who you envision, versus who they want to be. Someone here ( SirGuido ? I can't remember) ran a Jackercon game where they gave everyone a color choice (pink, green, etc.) and that informed which Gummi Bear (TV show) character you got. First off: you are risking someone getting a character they aren't into. Second: How strong are you enforcing or do you care if people stick with the canon personality. E.g. I don't mind playing Granny Gummi, but I want to play her my way, and not give a shit what the show was specifically about. And I think that's the risk that everyone was warning you about: if you come in too focused, there is a greater chance of player rebellion and dissatisfaction. The more you let go, the better odds that won't happen, but the further off-track you get from your concept. Just try to find that middle ground and cross those fingers. Yes the Gummi game was me. In my case I didn't care if they stuck to canon at all. I did a similar thing with Thundercats once except all they got to choose from were little jungle cat figurines. Again I didn't care if the stuck to canon. When I did my Harry Potter inspired American Aurors game all they got to pick from was a pile of wands. In that case I did try to have the wand reflect the character. Like the herbalist specialist had vines on the wand, the potions specialist had a glass vial worked into the wand, etc. With those characters I gave a few personality traits, their specialty, and their state of origin as the only defining bits. Which is why in one game the herbalist was very close to Snoop Dogg in character and the other was basically Willie Nelson. So... yeah.
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tomes
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Hello madness
Posts: 1,438
Currently Running: Dungeon World, hippie games, Fallout Shelter RPG hack
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Post by tomes on Feb 23, 2017 16:05:07 GMT -8
Yes the Gummi game was me. In my case I didn't care if they stuck to canon at all. I did a similar thing with Thundercats once except all they got to choose from were little jungle cat figurines. Again I didn't care if the stuck to canon. When I did my Harry Potter inspired American Aurors game all they got to pick from was a pile of wands. In that case I did try to have the wand reflect the character. Like the herbalist specialist had vines on the wand, the potions specialist had a glass vial worked into the wand, etc. With those characters I gave a few personality traits, their specialty, and their state of origin as the only defining bits. Which is why in one game the herbalist was very close to Snoop Dogg in character and the other was basically Willie Nelson. So... yeah. Yes! Love it. To me, that's the right balance of definition by the GM and ownership by the player! In my star frontiers game I had 6 race choices (Human, Dralasite, Robot, etc.) which could be combined with 6 choices of profession (Pilot, Captain, Engineer, etc.) and a few other simple choices. The race choices actually informed background in a fairly loose way (corporate espionage, military, refugee, etc.) But the character's personality? That was entirely up to you.
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Post by Stu Venable on Feb 23, 2017 16:59:37 GMT -8
When I ran my Moment of Truth:Septuagenarian game, I had packages players could pick from. There were three or four stat distributions, 5 or 6 skill packages, and a similar number of equipment packages. Players could mix and match as they liked.
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HyveMynd
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Post by HyveMynd on Feb 23, 2017 18:26:47 GMT -8
I don't do that many games with pregenerated characters (as you can generally make PCs pretty quickly in PbtA games), but when I do, I do exactly what @sirguide and tomes have described. I hand players something that provides an idea of what the character is (a portrait, a fake passport, a figurine, sometimes even the character sheet). But maybe more importantly, once the player takes over, that character becomes theirs and I have no say in how they're portrayed. Sure, it's nice if the players are familiar with the character if it's a game based on an existing IP ( Thunder Cats, The Pirates of Dark Water, Steven Universe, whatever) and try to play that character as they are in the show. But if they aren't familiar or chose not to? Who cares? This isn't an actual episode of whatever IP you're basing the game on. It's a game, and players have the right to play their characters, even pregenerated ones, however they see fit. (There's a slight caveat to that, as players shouldn't go against the agreed upon tone the table has established. Don't go dark and gritty when everyone else is doing fun and light hearted.)
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Post by ayslyn on Feb 23, 2017 21:09:14 GMT -8
The Pirates of Dark Water .......... You have my interest.....
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HyveMynd
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Dirty hippie, PbtA, Fate, & Cortex Prime <3er
Posts: 2,273
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Post by HyveMynd on Feb 23, 2017 21:12:33 GMT -8
The Pirates of Dark Water .......... You have my interest..... I need to go back and finish them, but I was working on Fate Accelerated Edition Pirates of Dark Water characters.
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Post by ericfromnj on Feb 24, 2017 12:36:20 GMT -8
D6 Star Wars did it well with the templates you could choose from.
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SirGuido
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Post by SirGuido on Feb 27, 2017 9:34:49 GMT -8
I hand players something that provides an idea of what the character is (a portrait, a fake passport, a figurine, sometimes even the character sheet). This is exactly what I do, and I do it for a few reasons. Number one I don't want players poring over the stats and picking the best character or some such nonsense. I've run Pathfinder games where it took nearly an hour for people to choose characters because "Oh we already have two melee types, we need a ranged fighter. We also need a healer and someone with magic." or "I hate playing Witches, they are horribly unbalanced and ineffective." or whatever. So if I give them something completely un-stat related to choose their character then I bypass that problem. Also, by doing character choices this way it also means there is a better chance that the player could stretch their roleplaying muscle by ending up with the "smart" character or the "talky" character instead of the "I attack it" character. When I took a cue from Stu and ran Ghostbusters many years ago I went whole hog and made up Ghostbuster Inc letterhead and printed up badges for each character. The pictures on the badges were pictures of various geek icons that I modeled the characters after. People like Felicia Day, Wil Wheaton, Jim Parsons, Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk, etc. They were then laminated and had a badge clip attached. I put the badges on the table, and let each person choose one. I then handed out their "personnel file" which was a file folder that included a bit of background, their sheets, and why they applied to be Ghostbusters. The background was very simple. You have a thing for character A and would like to get to know them better. You have a rivalry with character B and would like to see them fired. Things like that. I give them some direction but let them take it from there. Inspire them if you will.
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Post by uselesstriviaman on Feb 27, 2017 14:27:06 GMT -8
I just ran another session of my Dread game this weekend. The players get to choose from the following:
The Scientist The Bored Housewife Bonnie Clyde The Investigator The Celebrity
I've never had any problems.
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xsgtdanusmc
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Post by xsgtdanusmc on Mar 27, 2017 9:24:25 GMT -8
For convention game, a quick questionnaire helps with the players to wrap their heads around the characters. Items may/may not come up in game, but it give them something to go on. Below is the questionnaire for the Mentalist in my Supers-Police Procedural game.
1. What caused you to be homeless? How long were you ‘a bum’? 2. What made you ‘clean up’ and rejoin society? 3. Describe the day you first discovered you were a 'glow'. 4. How were you recruited to the RPD glow squad? Why did you accept? 5. What makes you love and hate the Blaster? (Collaborate)
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tomes
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Hello madness
Posts: 1,438
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Post by tomes on Mar 27, 2017 11:49:22 GMT -8
For convention game, a quick questionnaire helps with the players to wrap their heads around the characters. Items may/may not come up in game, but it give them something to go on. Below is the questionnaire for the Mentalist in my Supers-Police Procedural game. 1. What caused you to be homeless? How long were you ‘a bum’? 2. What made you ‘clean up’ and rejoin society? 3. Describe the day you first discovered you were a 'glow'. 4. How were you recruited to the RPD glow squad? Why did you accept? 5. What makes you love and hate the Blaster? (Collaborate) YES! Big fan of that. It effectively lets you tap in with whatever personality and story hooks you find interesting. Dread (Jenga tower game) uses this as the entire basis of the character, as there is really no need for stats and such, but I've borrowed the questionnaire concept for other RPGs that I've run. With PbtA games it's basically assumed that the GM will go through questions like this with the players to suss out their relationship to each other and the setting and the adventure.
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Post by Forresst on Mar 29, 2017 19:46:01 GMT -8
I once ran a Christmas Toon game where I made a bunch of characters that were mascots for other holidays. So like, Paddy the Leprechaun, and Uncle Sam, and The Turkey, and Old Man New Year. I also had SHAAAARK (for Shark Week) and the Tooth Fairy (for "what the hell will my 6th character be day").
I doctored up a bunch of random pictures of things I found on the internet. They picked based on the picture.
They liked it.
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Post by jazzisblues on Apr 16, 2017 12:29:14 GMT -8
When I do pre-gens for cons, I either give the players a summary of the characters with enough information (hopefully) to inform their choices, or I put the character sheets out and let them look at them trusting in the players to keep what they know and what their character does not know as separate things.
Cheers,
JiB
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Post by Wakefield on Apr 18, 2017 14:23:35 GMT -8
Thank you, folks, for this informative thread on exactly the issue I'm facing in preparation for Jackercon XIII! My two game ideas are based in systems that tend to result in time-consuming char-gen (King Arthur Pendragon and Vampire: The Masquerade), so I'm trying to think of ways to expedite this process for a con game while still leaving players the feeling of creative control.
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